The easiest things to fix are those that I can control.  For example, forgetting to submit regular status updates to the right people or not getting enough information prior to the project to make an informed proposal.

But I’ve also found several things that businesses can do to ensure that everything works smoothly.  Regardless of what type of consultant you’re hiring, the following tips should help make your next consulting engagement more productive.

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First and foremost, you may be struggling with the expense and value of training classes.  One of the big questions is always "Is certification worth it?"  This is a question at hiring ("This person has a ton of certifications, they must be good."), it’s a question when your employees want training ("Are they going to get this training and then leave?"), and it’s a question after the training when some employees may ask for a salary increase to recognize their new skills.

I’ve never put much stock in certifications myself.  But a couple weeks ago, I had an experience that may be altering my opinions on the subject.

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But she’s moving forward in a manner that I see all too often.  She’s going to spend money, time and effort doing things that are not going to help her run her business very much better.

How do I know this?  Let’s look and what she told me her problems are and what’s she’s doing to fix them…

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Wireless network operators have historically offered phones on the cheap with the stipulation that you sign a 1-2 year contract for their service.  In addition to that lock-in period, the operator typically cripples the phone in areas that may compete with their own offerings.  For example, Verizon cripples the Bluetooth features on their phones so that you can’t move pictures back and forth between your phone and your PC without going over their data network.  And their Wi-Fi enabled phones certainly wouldn’t support calls over a VOIP service such as Skype.

So how will this affect the typical business owner?

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Question: You run a destination type SMB like Starbucks.  How do you use the WiFi service you are offering them to build a community of your customers?  Do you allow them to engage each other a la Facebook or MySpace?  Do you give them the opportunity to "speak" to you directly?

But I recommended they hold on the custom development.  They needed to evaluate MS Sharepoint’s capabilities before proceeding.  Why?  The basic corporate intranet portal has been built 100+ times already.  Sharepoint, Plone, Liferay, JBoss, DotNetNuke and many others are decent out-of-the-box foundations for an internal site.  So there’s just no reason to pursue custom development for this type of project. 

But why Sharepoint?  This client is also upgrading their core enterprise system.  Turns out that the system based on a MS platform and uses Sharepoint for document management.  Doesn’t it make a lot of sense to evaluate whether or not the platform used by your core enterprise system will work for the rest of your needs as well?

Right now, they seem to like Sharepoint and we’re now doing a test project to prove it to the company.  If the test fails, there are other options.  But custom development for an intranet should be a last resort.

Here’s the rub with Symphony and the other MS Office alternatives.  Microsoft Office reached dominance not because of the functions that your average user cares about and that every basic office suite does well.  The tools were widely adopted because introductory level developers (like me) were able to quickly build department level applications that helped improve staff productivity.  In the absence of any real developer tools, I don’t believe Lotus Symphony or any other MS Office alternative has a shot at being anything more than a niche product.

I hate that I didn’t do a decent evaluation of the Lotus tools.  But the reality is that I spend my time working with tools that fit the environments my clients have in place.  As long as organizations have one person who has gone past the basic data entry functions of Excel, I will never convince them that an Office alternative will work for them.  And if they’re so small that they don’t have a serious investment in MS Office, why would I ever recommend they start out using tools that can’t be extended as their needs grow?